Learning to live with a young man's changes / Son seems a bit unfocused, but overall, he's fine

Alison Rood, Special to The Chronicle

Published 4:00 am, Wednesday, April 26, 2006

My son Nick is almost 18, and our 1,800-square-foot home, which is already small by today's standards, has suddenly shrunk even further. His lanky, 6-foot frame dominates every room he enters, and his loud, authoritative voice penetrates walls and closed doors as if they don't exist. The cats run for their lives when he bursts out of his bedroom and pounds down the stairs.

The little boy who requisitioned only part of the living room for his convoluted Hot Wheels courses now overwhelms the entire house with his mere presence. His stuff -- from his ponderous backpack to his size 11 shoes to his jumble of sunglasses, car keys and electronic gadgets -- seems disproportionately larger and more dramatically evident than the possessions of anyone else in the family. He's a lot like Jeremy from the Zits comic, with one exception. Unlike Jeremy's mother, I don't have to try very hard to get Nick to talk about himself. If I ask him how his day went, I'd better have 30 minutes set aside for his reply.

Lately we argue incessantly about the future because he prefers living in the present. Finishing his senior year in high school, working part time at a delicatessen and fine-tuning his roller-coaster Web site are more pleasant occupations than trying to figure out where he wants to be when he's 25 or how he'll get there. When he announces that someone from the United Kingdom is sending him amusement park footage for his site, I say, wonderful, but how does that translate into a long-term career? My husband and I find ourselves losing patience with him on a regular basis.

And then, out of the blue, a friend e-mailed and told me she'd had her 17-year-old son arrested, in their home. He'd already been identified as a methamphetamine addict, and when she rifled through his backpack and found fresh evidence of his usage she realized she was no longer capable of handling the situation alone. She watched the squad car pull away from her house with her son inside and knew that nothing would ever be the same again.

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My photo album is filled with happy images of Nick and my friend's son during their elementary school years. They started kindergarten together in 1993, and the pictures show them enjoying backyard barbecues, play dates in the park and sleepovers. There's a shot of them sitting on the wooden bench near our front door -- two carefree, grinning 6-year-olds -- the summer before they started first grade.

They drifted apart as they grew older, and we moved away by the time they reached middle school. Over the years my friend and I kept in touch by telephone and, later, by e-mail. Occasionally she mentioned trouble with her son. He was hanging out with the wrong crowd, his grades were poor, and he refused to spend time with the rest of the family.

She sought counseling, but things continued to deteriorate, until one day she wrote and said he'd been pulled over by police and arrested for marijuana possession. Several months later the methamphetamine problem surfaced. There were court dates and a parole officer. There was a trip to a hospital emergency room. Finally, there was the e-mail describing his arrest at home.

Nick has recently decided to spread his homework over the kitchen table in the early evenings, a time of day when I previously enjoyed a bit of solitude as I sipped wine and considered dinner options. Instead my overpowering son has claimed yet another piece of precious household space. He insists the availability of media in his bedroom is distracting, but I suspect he's just too lazy to clear his desk of the CDs, empty soda cans and residue from several days' worth of snacks.

I think of my friend and her son and find it hard to complain.

It's impossible to comprehend that the boy who sprawled on my living room couch watching "Pokemon" cartoons with Nick when they were third-graders is currently in the custody of the court and destined for a group home. My friend says when she looks at him now she sees a boy with problems she cannot fix. All she can do is take one day at a time and never give up.

I can't foresee what difficulties may loom in Nick's future any more than my friend knew her son would wind up where he is today. When Nick charges down the stairs bellyaching about the lack of disk space for his Web site, I'm just glad life feels normal.